Episode Details

Listening, translating, and meeting clients where they are is just as important as adopting the latest tech.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Michelle Vilms has a perspective that most small business accountants don’t have: she had a front-row seat to the explosive growth of Staples as it grew from 100 stores to a $15 billion corporation. Today, she brings her mastery of operational accounting to her own firm, Vilms Consulting, and the small business clients with whom she works.  

• CPA TRENDLINES CELEBRATES:The 100th Episode of The Disruptors
• MORE STREAMING: Dickerson: From Diagnosis to Disruption |Kapilovich: Treat People Like People | Martha Yasso: From Wall Street to Main Street | Jackie Meyer: Tax Plans in 90 Seconds? Believe It | Erica Goode: Build a $200K Firm in 15hrs/Week | Randy Crabtree: Live at the Intersection of Passion & Skill |McClelland and Telka: Women Ready to Rewrite the Rules of Accounting | Jacob Schroeder: AI Won’t Replace Accountants—But It Will Reveal Who’s Replaceable | Ditching Corporate America: The Bold Story Behind PBS Accounting’s Rapid Rise | Jean Zick: Happy Team = Happy Clients | Breslin & Greathead: Be a Client Advocate | Dominic Piscopo: Clear Pay=Bargaining Power | Debbie Kilsheimer: Stop Thinking Small |

Vilms' final position at Staples was director of Marketing and Finance, where she worked with the creative people who were putting together catalogs or ads. “They were numbers persons in their specialty, but they weren't accounting numbers people,” she explains. “And so just learning to have empathy and explain it to them in the terms that they needed really brought me back to that corporate experience, is how I landed in operational accounting for our firm.” 

Today, Vilms uses that same approach with her clients, focusing on understanding her clients’ concerns and explaining accounting in familiar terms.